Author: Adrienne Gonzalez

Adrienne is a 15-year veteran of the accounting industry, if by "veteran" you mean "vulture prowling the periphery of the profession waiting for something exciting to happen." She has been spewing vitriol on Going Concern since the site was founded in 2009. A former CPA review employee, she has sat through more FAR classes than any CPA exam candidate ever could -- even one who has failed FAR seven times -- and can still recall most of the mnemonics all these years later.

Things You Definitely Need to Take the CPA Exam

Rose from Sleep on CPA is still plugging away at the exam, but when I read her recent REG wrap-up, I noticed a funny bit she included about a fellow tester she encountered at Prometric:

I was so surprised to find a girl at Prometric who doesn’t even know what NTS is!!! She brought a print out of Prometric appointment confirmation. When a staff member was asking her for NTS, she was clueless. A staff member explained her what NTS is and told her to get a printout from her NASBA emails from a nearby Kinkos. I showed her my NTS and she came back with a print out of NTS and wrote her exam.

Can that possibly be true?! Given some of the very obvious questions I’ve gotten over the years, I guess anything is possible.

I’m sure none of you guys will ever have this issue but just in case, let’s go back over what you definitely need to sit for the exam.


1) A map to Prometric or a good GPS – Plug the address in the night before so you have one less thing to worry about on testing day.

2) GAS IN YOUR TANK – I hate to even have to say this but it’s come up (like I said, anything is possible). I’m the kind of person who plays chicken with my gas light, and it’s caused me to be late to work more than once. Fill up the night before.

3) Bring your unexpired, original NTS and AT LEAST two forms of acceptable identification – The number on your NTS will be used as your launch code to begin testing, so you definitely do NOT want to leave it at home. If you are unable to produce your NTS and two forms of identification that match it, you will not be allowed to test and will forfeit your exam fees for that day.

4) Bring extra ID just in case – In most cases, you’ll need an unexpired driver’s license and a credit card, but just in case Prometric staff have issues with your ID and want to hassle you, bring an extra bank card or credit card if you have one. Social Security cards are not accepted as identification for Prometric purposes.

5) Do NOT bring big items into the testing center with you – While you can stash your jacket or purse in Prometric lockers, they cannot accommodate golf bags, large suitcases, garbage bags full of recyclables, etc. So leave your crap at home.

Sorry for the remedial reminder, don’t want to leave anyone behind.

President’s Council on Jobs Report Suggests We Should Try Sarbanes-Oxley Light for IPOs

Barbara Roper wrote a commentary piece in WaPo Capital Business over the weekend that suggests the unthinkable: softening hard ass SOX rules for IPOs could actually kill jobs. How is that possible? Aren’t IPOs great for the economy?

Well, not always. Case in point: Groupon. Healthy, financially strong businesses are good for the economy. Scams, frauds or even overambitious accounting tricks might temporarily get the economy’s spirits up like a few rails of coke but eventually reality sets in and the economy is left broken and penniless in the alley looking for its next hit.


The report is an effort on the part of the Obama crew, who surveyed 27 business executives (including AOL’s Steve Case… and we know how his business turned out) for ideas on how to get the economy moving again. Among the suggestions, the report recommends Congress make compliance with all or part of Sarbanes-Oxley voluntary for public companies with market valuations up to $1 billion or, alternatively, exempt all companies from SOX compliance for five years after they go public.

The report blames burdensome SOX rules for the sharp drop in small IPOs in recent years, writing:

In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble and unintended consequences stemming from the Spitzer Decree and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, the number of IPOs in the United States has fallen significantly. This is especially true for smaller companies aspiring to go public. As noted earlier, the share of IPOs that were smaller than $50 million fell from 80% in the 1990s to 20% in the 2000s. Well-intentioned regulations aimed at protecting the public from the misrepresentations of a small number of large companies have unintentionally placed significant burdens on the large number of smaller companies.

That would totally work as a justification except the SEC already debunked this silly idea. In a report earlier this year recommending no new 404(b) exemptions, SEC analysis showed that the United States has not lost U.S.-based companies filing IPOs to foreign markets for the range of issuers that would likely be in the $75-$250 million public float range after the IPO. “While U.S. markets’ share of world-wide IPOs raising $75-$250 million has declined over the past five years, there is no conclusive evidence from the study linking the requirements of Section 404(b) to IPO activity,” the report stated.

And as we all know, companies under $75 million haven’t had to worry about the SOX burden at all thanks to Congressional intervention. So how could it be that the burden they haven’t had has somehow prevented them from going public?

New boogeyman, please. I’m no huge fan of SOX but you’re going to have to come up with something better than this to convince me it’s a good idea to can it.

CPA Requirements: Meeting the 150 Credit Rule on a Budget

Happy Friday, people! Is it a blackout month yet? I guess not. But hey, we have a good question I received via Twitter yesterday to talk about. If you have a CPA exam question, life question, career question or general insult to hurl at me, tweet or email me.

Done w/ exam but do u have any recs on getting 150 cred other than grad school. I don’t want to pay the $$ for it. #cpahelp

Ahhh, the good old 150 rule. Intended to turn bright-eyed young accounting students into skilled leaders of the industry, the 150 rule has driven a lot of you right off the steaming pile of debt. But unless your state actually requires a Master’s (I can’t name a single one that does), there is absolutely no reason to take that route unless you feel that it will improve your salary prospects or if you can afford it. Otherwise? Please.

So. What’s a 4-year-college underachiever to do?


The truth is that many state boards accept credits from any educational institution recognized in that state, meaning you can easily sign up for 30 units at community college and meet the 150 unit requirement for licensure. Now, the key here is to take classes that you think will round you out as a human being, actually be interesting, or at least inspire you to show up for class. In my experience taking night classes at a community college back in the day, community college professors can actually be a lot more fun than the professors you might be used to. Many work in the industry or field that they will be teaching you about, which allows them a real world practical experience that many academic accounting professors might not have (sorry, guys, you know I’m right). If you are single, you can also definitely find some tail at community college, so there’s another bonus.

Community college will be your cheapest option (if recognized by your state board), but if that isn’t something you’re able to do, there are always online colleges. A lot of these are for-profit, overpriced and not always fun to attend, though I can’t say that from personal experience. I’ve heard stories, mmkay? If you have the money, there’s nothing wrong with enrolling to take some online classes this way but it is definitely more feasible for the left-brainers out there.

Whatever you decide to do, take the opportunity to get creative with your education. Those additional units are meant for you to advance your knowledge so you can be better at your job protecting the public trust or whatever it is you’re meant to do when you get your CPA. A fucking art class wouldn’t kill you, it rounds you out.

New Jersey Works Out Its Big CPA Exam Application Kink

You guys remember earlier this month when we found out that some eligible CPA exam candidates in New Jersey were incorrectly rejected by CPAES, the company the NJ Board uses to process exam applications? Yeah, well, that’s fixed now.


According to NJSCPA Director of Communications Don Meyer, the current NJ regulations regarding educational requirements to sit for the CPA Exam have been and will continue to be the “law of the land” until the State Board determines otherwise.

• Under the current regulations, applicants wishing to take the CPA exam prior to earning the full 150 credit hours must earn a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, take 60 semester hours of “liberal arts” courses AND take specific government, finance and business courses.

• However, due to some confusion about the interpretation of those regulations, the Board will on an interim basis grant waivers to candidates to sit for the exam if they have 120 semester hours of general college level education and a bachelors degree.

To read more, check out this update from NJSCPA.

Note: The IRS Does Not Appreciate You Not Reporting Your Embezzlement Gains

Let this serve as a warning to any would-be embezzlers out there, if you steal, you better report it to the IRS.


42-year-old Collette Snyder of Timonium, MD pleaded guilty earlier this month to filing false tax returns in 2007 and 2008 after she neglected to claim over $382,000 embezzled from her former employer, Towson, MD-based Maple Leaf Title.

As part of her duties at the title company, Snyder had signature authority over the company’s operating, settlement and recording accounts, which allowed her to begin embezzling money from MLT accounts starting in 2007. She deposited company checks directly into her personal bank account, as well as made checks payable to her husband without his knowledge, forging his signature to deposit those checks in an account he was not aware of. At that point, Snyder had been an employee of MLT for two years.

Snyder took around $149,560 in 2007 and $232,968 in 2008. These embezzled funds were used to purchase jewelry, a BMW, trips, home improvements and private school tuition.

Because reporting this money to the IRS without it clearly declared on her W-2 (despite her writing “payroll” in the memo section of company checks she wrote out to herself) would have alerted authorities to the fraud, Snyder neglected to mention the ill-gotten gains. This resulted in an estimated tax loss of $115,529.37 for her 2007 and 2008 returns.

Due to the embezzlement by Snyder and MLT President Anthony Weis, MLT was unable to perform its duties as a provider of settlement services. With MLT’s escrow account drained, existing mortgage notes could not be paid off by MLT, meaning clear and free title could not be passed to the new lender and borrower of those notes. An insurance company that had issued title insurance policies to the borrowers guaranteeing clear title ultimately paid out $3.9 million to financial institutions that held mortgage notes.

Weis pleaded guilty to wire fraud, was sentenced to 78 months in prison and was ordered to pay restitution of $4,007,705, which includes the loss to the title insurance company and the expenses of the individual victims. He began his sentence in May of this year. The interesting part of this story is that Weis stole money intended for his clients’ real estate closings. And then Snyder stole from the company. Birds of a feather…

Snyder faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of $250,000. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake has scheduled her sentencing for February 3 , 2012 at 11:00 am.

“Mortgage fraud adds to the underground economy that erodes the integrity of our tax system and threatens the financial health of our communities. IRS Criminal Investigation is committed to ‘following the money trail’ to ensure that those who engage in these illegal activities are vigorously investigated and brought to justice,” said IRS – Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Jeannine A. Hammett.

How Do Big 4 Exiles Get Their CPE?

File this one under first world problems.

Hello,

I’m starting to think about post-Big 4 opportunities and I am wondering how people maintain their CPE credits after leaving the Big 4. Since we need to take 80 hours of CPE credits every 2 years to maintain a CPA, do most employers offer trainings that give CPE credits? If not, will they give you time off and pay for the classes? I’d be very interested in hearing from you, and from the Going Concern community.


Well considering so many of the country’s employable CPAs somehow manage to meet their board of accountancy’s CPE requirements year after year, there’s got to be a trick to stay current that doesn’t involve firms forking out the cash for “experts” to school their staff on all things billable to the CPE time code. Are you telling me you have somehow escaped the wrath of NASBA and don’t get emailed weekly with new CPE offers? Congratulations.

I spoke to one of my favorite HR people at a reasonably-sized but definitely not Big 4 firm to find out what their CPE policy is and found out that most firms above 50 people pay for CPE in one way or another. According to a national survey conducted by the AICPA and the Texas Society of CPAs, 42 percent of the smallest firms paid for CPE in 2010. So unless you end up working out of some ancient CPA’s basement, you will probably not be expected to pay your own way.

Obviously, smaller firms will not be able to provide in-house CPE but you can likely get your online CPE comped, or get reimbursed for any travel associated with in-person CPE you attend. But seriously?! In-person CPE? Get with the times, man.

If you do end up needing to pay your own way (again, totally unlikely as long as you stay gainfully employed by a real accounting firm, even a tiny one), your state society of CPAs can probably provide information on their CPE offerings, or there is always NASBA (as anyone on their email list will tell you) or the AICPA.

Remember too that if you are attending conferences like AICPA Council, you get CPE for doing so, so maybe those dumb meetings aren’t so pointless after all.

CPA Exam Candidate’s Study Break Results in Caption Ingenuity

As many of you are painfully aware, accountants aren’t generally known for their sense of humor. DUIs? Maybe. Organizational skills? Definitely. Freakish ability to memorize a dictionary’s worth of FASB ASCs? Sadly, yes.

But every now and then, the world is blessed with an accountant who smashes the mold.

Case in point, 24-year-old David Woodbridge. A native of Lake Forest, IL, Woodbridge just won the New Yorker’s caption contest for his chortle-worthy caption which appeared in the magazine’s October 10th issue. Odds of winning the contest are estimated at 1 in 10,000 due to the large number of submissions, according to the magazine’s cartoon editor. Anyone care to take a guess on the odds that an accountant could win the contest?

The best part of the story? He came up with the winning entry while taking a break from studying for the CPA exam:

Woodbridge said he first tried the contest about three years ago but gave up after not winning after several attempts. Upon graduating from college, he decided to try the weekly contest again this summer while studying for the CPA exam.

Now I know what you’re asking… what was this hilarious caption?

Woodbridge’s winning caption was “Looks like they’re making cuts at the top” to a drawing of two janitors standing in the lobby of a building with headless corporate executives entering the building around them. He beat out “I dare anyone to say we missed a spot” and “It seems a bit extreme, but it does keep the zombies away” to win an original drawing of his captioned cartoon (valued at $250).

Uhhh… congrats?

Easy CPA Exam Answers

Sometimes, the answers come easy:

Hello. I am taking the REG and AUD sections of the CPA exam during the latter part of the Oct/Nov testing window. In your opinion, how much “rote memorization” is required to successfully pass the two sections referenced above.

Thank you for your assistance.

DMF

Simple. Zero.


For every hour of CPA review lecture video you watch, you should do 2 – 3 hours of homework for that section. If you rewatch a lecture, I would still do an additional 2 – 3 hours homework (MCQ or practice simulations) for each subsequent viewing. There is no such thing as practicing too much but don’t tell that to people who have scored in the mid to upper 90s.

Rote memorization? I wouldn’t call the effort you put into studying for these sections “rote memorization,” though you will be engaging in repetition (to the point of nausea) to really indoctrinate the concepts into your head.

In order to actually learn the concepts you need to pass, you will need to know why the answers are right and wrong, not just what the answers are. That’s why you don’t hear about people smuggling answers out of Prometric (they could if they really wanted to), it wouldn’t do anyone any good.

You will need to memorize certain concepts (don’t bother remembering every single tax form and SAS) but generally speaking, your most effective strategy is going to be to get in as much practice as you can. That means plowing through questions but thinking about the answers as you do so. Use the guide above to figure out just how many hours you need to put into each section but the “magic number” varies wildly for each candidate, you may need more or you may need less.

Would Anyone Actually Download This AICPA App?

That’s a serious question.

I’ve been to events with lots of accountants huddled up in a room showing off their technology so I am not implying that CPAs don’t care about apps, I’m just wondering if anyone would download an app dedicated to a particular AICPA conference.

CrowdCompass released the AICPA Not-For-Profit Financial Executive Forum app on October 15th and as far as I can tell, no one cares about it.


The description reads as follows:

Between the slowed-down economy and a more stringent regulatory environment, the last few years have led to a “new normal.” Gaining lost momentum and getting back on track with smart new strategies and practical solutions are necessary for success.

This AICPA Not-for-Profit Financial Executive Forum is the solutions-based conference that features top experts and is designed specifically to address these issues and provide the answers for your financial, technical and structural operations. You’ll come away with valuable insights and tools to take back to your organization and implement immediately.

The 2011 NFP FEF (if that isn’t a mouthful…) sounds like a great time for anyone actually interested in non-profits (my unofficial research shows there are about 7 of you). Not-for-profit financial executive staff members, CEOs, CFOs/executive directors and directors of finance in NFP could probably learn a lot and enrich the very core of their work by hanging around at one of these forums. Hey, you can even check in on foursquare from the conference. But the Android app? I’m not sure I see the benefit there.

Does an app make navigating the conference any easier? You still have to remember the name of the person you met three hours ago who you’re being introduced to again and no app can help you with that. It’s not like there are several square miles of territory to navigate as you’re cruising the conference circuit, so is it necessary to have your exact position on the map? Maybe I’m just an old BlackBerry user who doesn’t get it.

Anyway, the conference is from October 27-28, 2011 at the Westin in my former hometown of San Francisco, CA so it isn’t too late for you to register and fly out there to the Land of Fruits and Nuts for some non-profity goodness.

If anyone actually downloads and uses this app, can you please get in touch with me? I’m curious to hear what you did with it. Sorry, that’s kind of lazy but the AICPA isn’t going to sell me the email list of anyone who buys the app so this is the best we’ve got.

Line Up For Your Own CPA.com Email Address Now!

We’re getting lots of great news out of the fall meeting of AICPA Governing Council in Phoenix, AZ – some of which includes the CPA exam – but this little interesting tidbit might actually be something some of you might want to get on.

CPA2Biz (an AICPA subsidiary) announced yesterday it will offer a CPA-branded email service for AICPA members beginning later this fall. Eligible AICPA members will be able to get an email in their own name that ends with the coveted cpa.com address, making it a much more professional alternative to those embarrassing Hotmail and Yahoo address some (allegedly) professional CPAs use for business purposes.

So, if Caleb were not merely an inactive CPA but an actual CPA, he’d be able to hook up caleb.newquist@cpa.com. He could then use this for everything from his private practice to his, uh, private practice (you know, like Craigslist or Match or whatever it is he does in his spare time when he’s not hitting on girls in the Whole Foods organic bulgur wheat section). Cool!


The benefits here are obvious. First, CPA is a powerful brand, and being able to identify yourself as such in your email address gives that extra bit of authority that you just don’t get from accountingdude2005@yahoo.com (I made that email address up, sorry if that actually belongs to anyone out there). It also makes your email address easier to remember for clients, who should hopefully know your name and at least know that you’re a CPA, making it easy for them to memorize your CPA-branded email address.

AICPA members can order basic email, or step up to a business-class offering that includes premier security, access and easy-to-use management tools. The product was announced at yesterday’s meeting of fall Council.

“This is going to be of significant value to sole practitioners because a majority of them are using consumer email services to conduct business,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA2Biz, the technology subsidiary of AICPA. “Additionally, members of larger firms, as well as those in business and industry, now have the opportunity to own a portable professional email account. Regardless of what firm you work for or which industry you represent, it can serve you throughout your career.”

Pricing and service details will be announced in coming weeks. The offering will be the first of many to be featured on CPA.com, the new firm services solutions hub for CPA2Biz.

Sometimes It’s Your Own Fault You Aren’t Passing the CPA Exam

After I crashed Caleb’s Yaeger Radio appearance, someone wrote in looking for help. If you have a question, do the same. But please don’t ask which review course to use, I can’t help there.

Hello Adrienne

I heard you over Yaeger’s talk radio tonight. You were very informative and helpful. I wish I heard you few months ago, how to study and make time to study.

Here is my story:

I took the CPA exam 10 years ago, way back during paper and pencil days. I passed 3 parts and lost my credit due to my personal life issues.

Why Don’t More Accounting Professors Blog?

I’ll admit, I’ve trolled Tom Selling’s Accounting Onion. From what I hear, Tom doesn’t appreciate my potty mouth but that doesn’t mean I appreciate his salty opinion any less. He hates the idea of IFRS in the U.S., which immediately endears anyone to me, and I enjoy his candid (if slightly more boring than what you all are used to here on Going Concern) tone.

So when I was in full-on troll mode and saw Tom’s recent Why Do Accounting Academics Blog Less Than Other Academics? post, I had to tweet it. Short version of theeems like every bunch of academics except those in accounting seem to blog their bookish little butts off?


Well one blogging academic didn’t like that tweet (don’t shoot the messenger, bro, I am in enough trouble for my actual opinions, I don’t need heat on account of someone else’s *troll win*) and ended up writing an entire post in response *extra troll win*. Associate Professor and Chair of Accounting & Taxation at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business, Mark Holtzman, wrote the following on his Accounting Ethicist blog:

Last night I read the Accounting Onion’s latest post, asking “why do accounting academics blog less than other academics?” The writer, Tom Selling, offers a novel, if implausible theory:

We (accounting professors) rely on the Big-4 oligopoly to hire our students:

There are certainly tradeoffs to blogging, but they all seem to be roughly the same across academic disciplines, except for the presence of the Big Four. For some reason, that appears to be a net negative in relation to blogging opportunities.

Could it be that blogging by accounting professors is detrimental to the career prospects of one’s accounting students? I’m just asking.

I immediately tweeted that this post was not nice or true. (I then added, in a second tweet, that “Accounting professors don’t blog much because we are too busy with teaching, research and service.” That was admittedly a poorly-thought-out answer – Accounting professors are just as busy as English profs or any other area.)

First of all, Accounting Onion’s theory would suggest that somehow the Big-4 fuel an atmosphere of fear. Here’s a narrative: Accounting academics are afraid to say what they really think for fear of upsetting Big-4 recruiters, and that Big-4 recruiters would viciously retaliate against these academics by refusing to hire their students. That’s ridiculous. I think I can speak for my colleagues when I say that we’re not willing to lie (or withhold the truth) in order to get prestigious employers to hire our students.

Furthermore, I’ve worked for the Big-4 (or I should say the Big-8 and Big-6 – scratch that! I haven’t worked for the Big-4, have I?). In my capacity as a Department Chair, I know many Big-4 recruiters and employees. And we accounting professors do have a lot of far-fetched opinions. But I don’t know any recruiters or partners who would retaliate against students because of their professors’ far-fetched opinions. The Big-4 firms are very systematic about who they recruit and wise enough to hire our students in spite of us and our wacky opinions.

That said, how do we answer Accounting Onion’s question? Where are all the accounting professor-bloggers?

Here goes: I’m sorry to say that accounting doesn’t make for very interesting blogging. See any interesting tax footnotes lately? How ’bout that new FASB proposal? IFRS is already a joke – how many bloggers do we need to point that out? Here comes “Little GAAP.” Is there anything interesting to say about “Little GAAP?” And while I’m at it, have you ever seen the list of topics at a AAA meeting? There could be more accounting professor blogs, yes, but who would want to read all that cr@p?

He goes on to point out that there are notable exceptions to the rule – Going Concern being one of them – but for the most part, the gist I got was that accounting is too fucking boring to warrant dedicating one’s time and effort to writing about it. Thanks for crushing my lofty career goals and any pride I had (if I ever did) in what I actually do for a living.

Pride isn’t the only thing that makes me take issue with that. I have somehow made writing about accounting my life for the last three years so I get that it’s boring. Trust me, I am the last person on the planet who would have ever thought accounting could be interesting but then I started following the adoption of IFRS in the U.S., SEC employees’ porn problems, massive frauds and interesting police blotters starring CPAs around the country. Know what? It’s not that fucking boring. And I don’t just say that to make myself feel better about my questionable career choices.

Who would want to read about that crap? A lot of people, actually. I am amazed by the amount of traffic I get on accounting-related posts on Jr Deputy Accountant that are months or even years old. Are accountants on top of the news cycle? Well no, there is no news cycle. Thank God I have the CPA exam to write about or else I might be out of a job for as little news we get in this industry. But accountants are just as interested in opinion and information as anyone, if not more.

So? What do you guys think? Would you actually read blogs by your accounting professors?